FIG. 10 shows a schematic construction of a photographic processor of prior art. As shown in FIG. 1, a photosensitive material (a roll of photographic paper) 10 is accommodated in a magazine. The magazine is loaded on a top part of the photographic processor 1. The photosensitive material 10 fed out from the magazine is fed into a dark room 2 through the top part of the photographic processor 1 and cut by a cutter 4 to obtain a cut sheet of photographic paper with a certain size. The cut sheet of photosensitive material 10 is transported onto an exposure table 3.
The exposure table 3 is installed in such a way that an exposing plane thereof has an inclination of about 45 degrees relative to the ground. An enlarging lens unit 20 is provided in a state that an axis of lens L thereof is orthogonal to the exposing plane of the exposure table 3, namely, with a lens surface thereof opposing the exposing plane of the exposure table 3 tilted at about 45 degrees relative to the ground. A light source 11 is provided in such a manner that light emitted therefrom intersects substantially perpendicularly to the optic axis L of the enlarging lens unit 20 by way of a mirror unit 12. A film feed mechanism (not shown) for feeding a negative film is disposed between the light source 11 and the enlarging lens unit 20. An operation panel 13 and a display monitor device 14 are provided in the vicinity of the light source 11 and the enlarging lens unit 20.
The photosensitive material 10 after the exposure is transported to a developing unit 30 by a transport mechanism 5 such as a belt, and is subjected to various processing such as developing, bleaching/fixing, stabilizing, and drying. Upon completion of these various processing, the photosensitive material 10 is discharged onto the top part of the photographic processor 1.
Next, the construction of the enlarging lens unit in the conventional photographic processor 1 is described in detail with reference to FIG. 11. The enlarging lens unit 20 is equipped with a lens moving deck 21 that is movable in a certain direction X-X' (for instance, the direction perpendicular to the plane of FIG. 10) by, e.g., a ball screw mechanism or a belt drive mechanism (both not shown), a main lens 22 such as a zoom lens loaded on the lens moving deck 21, a mirror 23, and an auxiliary lens 24 such as a focus lens having a predetermined single focal length (hereafter, referred to as a "single-distance focus lens"). The lens moving deck 21 is divided into three sections: a center area (a mirror loading section B) on which the mirror 23 is loaded; a left-hand area in FIG. 11 (a first lens loading section A) on which the main lens 22 is loaded; and a right-hand area (a second lens loading section C) on which the auxiliary lens 24 is loaded.
The main lens 22 such as a zoom lens enables to process two kinds (sizes) of photographs by a single photographic processor by desirably switching a focal length (angle of view) in the case where a film to be processed has the size "135" and contains images taken under normal size photography and panoramic photography in a combined manner. The auxiliary lens 24 such as a single-distance focus lens is used, for instance, in the case where the film of the size "120" having a large image area (namely, frame size) is processed or the enlarging magnification is great. The mirror 23 is adapted to deflect a light path that passes through an opening 50 and the film set in such a way as to oppose the opening 50 at about right angle and guide the deflected light to a light sensor 25. The light sensor 25 detects the state of the film, namely, each component of three primary colors of the film. The ratio of each color component and exposed time when each image was exposed are determined based on an output from the sensor 25.
In the conventional photographic processor having the above arrangement, the lens moving deck 21 has a large dimension and heavy weight because the main lens 22 and the auxiliary lens 24 are loaded on the lens moving deck 21 on any occasion. Further, while the main lens 22 is, for instance, set at an exposed position opposing the film 50 (sic) (the location corresponding to the mirror loading section B), the mirror 23 and the auxiliary lens 24 are required to be retracted from the exposed position. Similarly, while the auxiliary lens 24 is set at the exposed position, the main lens 22 and the mirror 23 are required to be retracted from the exposed position. This arrangement necessitates a large space for moving the lens moving deck 21 in X-X' direction in FIG. 1 covering a length about 5/3 times of the length of the lens moving deck 21, and inevitably enlarges the width of the photographic processor (dimension extending in the direction normal to the plane of FIG. 10).
Also, the kind (size) Of film to be processed in the processing laboratory on everyday basis is mainly "135" size, and the film having a large image area such as the film of "120" size is seldom processed. Accordingly, the frequency of using the auxiliary lens is extremely low, and there is no significance of loading the auxiliary lens 24 of less use on the lens moving deck 21 on any occasion. Further, there are various frame sizes concerning the film with the size "120" or its equivalent such as 6.times.4.5, 6.times.6, 6.times.7, and 6.times.9 (unit in centimeter). This necessitates preparing several kinds of auxiliary lens 24 having different focal lengths and different diameters of image circles corresponding to the lenses and selectively loading the auxiliary lens 24 suitable for the needed frame size. The lens exchange has been, however, difficult because the optic lens L of the enlarging lens unit 20 is tilted relative to the ground at about 45 degrees as shown in FIG. 10.